Civil Society Regulation in West Africa: Self-Regulation, State Control or Regional Norms and Standards?

Voluntary organisations, which will be referred, to in this study as Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) currently carry out their activities subject to the domestic laws where they operate. The laws include those that ordinarily regulate the registration and operation of CSOs and other laws and policies that affect the ways they operate within the society. Notable amongst these laws and policies include national constitutions, anti-terrorism laws and legislations that generally regulate freedom of information, association and expression. There is no single international statute regulating the activities of CSOs.

Partnering for Development? Analyzing Possibilities and Challenges for Civil Society Organisations and the Private Sector in West Africa

Since the middle of the 1990s, partnership as a strategy for development in the „emerging economies‟ has emerged as an ideological mantra. Drawing its power from the exhaustion of earlier development models and the apparent failure of state intervention in the „developing‟ world, the discourse nudged development actors away from reliance on international aid towards the apparent multiple benefits of partnerships. Almost two decades on, the discourse shows no signs of flagging.

In this paper, I have examined the idea of partnerships, specifically civil society-private sector partnerships- against the template of social, economic and political developments in the West African sub-region. Pointing out that partnerships are products of time and place, thus liable to succeed or fail depending on a whole range of variables, I analyzed the particular challenges faced by both civil society and the private sector in West Africa.

The Politics of Regional Integration in West Africa

Regional integration processes are today, more than ever before, driven by the pre-eminence of the forces of globalisation in the post Cold War international system. As a result, no part of the world or section of humanity would like to be left behind or marginalised by other regions, or to be classified among the ‗wretched of the earth‘. Thus successful integration will enable weaker regions and states to properly equip themselves for the fierce competition among regions and states in the 21st Century. The rest of this section discusses pertinent issues on how to consolidate the gains made by ECOWAS in the last thirty six years to move the regional integration agenda forward.